Feel the Power of the IDF!

A build-up of Russian military on Ukraine's border with the
Crimean region, which has been annexed by Moscow, could reflect
"very bad intentions," Ukraine's U.N. envoy warned on Thursday
after the U.N. Security Council discussed the growing tensions.

Ukrainian U.N. Ambassador Volodymyr Yelchenko, who requested the
closed-door meeting of the 15-member council, said Russia had
amassed more than 40,000 troops in Crimea, seized by Moscow in
2014, and on the Ukrainian border.

Aleppo, which has been beset by constant violence since 2012, and the site of
unspeakable suffering from air strikes, ground fighting, and even chemical
weapons attacks, has become a humanitarian nightmare.

A
man carries an injured man after what activists said was shelling
from forces loyal to Syria's President Bashar al-Assad in
Aleppo's Al-Mashad neighbourhood March 20,
2015.A shortage of well-supplied hospitals has resulted in
countless deaths that might have been prevented had the mortally
wounded been able to seek medical treatment — a shortage of
doctors, many of whom have either been killed or fled Aleppo
since the fighting erupted, has made the situation even more
dire.

MARYINKA, Ukraine - Framed by a tiny cutout in the fortified
bunker, this particular piece of no-man's land is tinted a
blood-reddish orange by the setting summer sun.
It's hot as hell, and it's about to get hotter. When the sun goes
down, the guns start blazing. And all that separates the men at
their triggers is a grassy patch of land the size of a soccer
field that is heavily mined. If you're a Ukrainian soldier here,
you don't need binoculars to observe the enemy -- you just look
in his direction.

A
Grad multiple rocket launcher system fires during a military
exercise for Ukrainian army reservists at a shooting range near
the village of Goncharivske in Chernihiv region, Ukraine, June
22, 2016

It starts with a single shot from a Kalashnikov: Ziiip. Then
another: Ziiip. And three more: Ziiip. Ziiip. Ziiip. Each shot
whizzes dangerously closer. In the time it takes to boil an egg,
the situation escalates as the rifles are joined by .50-caliber
machine guns, mortars, and rocket-propelled grenades that explode
with hollow thuds against the earth or cottages where the
soldiers eat and sleep, showering everything with shrapnel.
Within an hour, shells from howitzers and tanks -- and eventually
surface-to-surface Grad missiles, whose name is Russian for
"hail" -- begin pummeling the scarred steppe.

ISIS might be ceding territory in the Middle East, but it
hasn't given up the battle for hearts and minds.

The terrorist group is playing a long game, working
aggressively to indoctrinate children under its control to
groom the next generation of jihadis in its image.

While other terrorist groups around the world have also used
children, new reports reveal the unprecedented system ISIS
has created to raise the next generation of terrorists.

German newspaper Der Spiegel
talked to several children who explained how ISIS, also
referred to as IS or the Islamic State, methodically brainwashes
kids to ensure that even if its territory is wiped out, it'll
still have a loyal band of followers keeping the group alive.

The first images of what appear to be British special forces
operating on the ground in Syria have emerged, showing vehicles
patrolling near the scene of an attack by Islamic State.
The pictures were taken in June and were first published by the BBC.

It is believed to be the first time British forces have been
photographed operating inside Syria, where they are engaged in relatively small
numbers in wide-ranging roles that include surveillance, advisory
and combat.

The battle for Aleppo has the Arab world, Middle
East observers and Western policymakers on edge.
In what is likely a turning point in the long Syrian civil war, a
coalition of opposition fighters is attempting to break Bashar
al-Assad regime’s siege of the country’s commercial capital.

Meanwhile, the Syrian government – with Russian support – is
bombing rebel strongholds in the city which is still home to
250,000 people, according to the BBC.

A
rebel fighter sits with his weapon in the artillery academy of
Aleppo

Thanks to recent U.S. diplomatic overtures to deepen cooperation with Russia against the
Islamic State, or IS, and al-Qaida affiliate Al-Nusra Front, the
U.S. could be considered a partner in those airstrikes. The U.S.
overtures have been criticized as strategically inconsistent and Putin-pleasing.

As a student of American policy in the Middle East, I’d argue
that American efforts are key to the tumultuous trajectory of
Syria’s uprising-turned-war.

What’s less clear to me is how much U.S. President Barack Obama’s
approach prioritizes either the immediate needs of Syrians
suffering from war and terrorism or their aspirations for
self-liberation from authoritarian rule.

The war in eastern Ukraine has lately resembled the anecdote about
boiling a frog: the fighting has been slowly increasing in intensity,
but the international community has thus far acted as if nothing was
happening. Then, over the weekend, a car bomb went off wounding Igor
Plotnitsky, the head of the so-called breakaway Luhansk People’s
Republic, prompting Kyiv and the separatists to lob accusations at each other as to who was behind the attack. Nervous reports by Ukrainian officials that Russia was sending fresh tanks over the border into Donbas and massing troops
on the crossing into Crimea had Ukraine-watchers fingering their panic
buttons. Today, the Poroshenko Administration went as far as to announce
it was putting its forces on high alert in anticipation of some kind of
Russian attack. The frog looked set to leap out of the pot.